"For example, a year ago our clients were informing us they
found it exhausting to manage the contact details for everyone
who may respond to our 360-degree feedback questionnaires.
Sometimes there are thousands of email addresses in a single
project.

"So we developed a special site that frees up the
administrators. It allows the email addresses to be entered by
the same individuals who are going to be assessed.".

Customers loved the new function, but instantly told the
company they wanted more. Because some of the addresses were
entered inaccurately, they were receiving a lot of bounce-backs.
They didn't appreciate the extra work of tracing and correcting
those addresses.

"We
gave our developers an urgent new task," says Kohn-Bentley, "and
now we can go directly and automatically to the people who
entered incorrect information, and ask them to correct it on a
special website that's easy to use. It's a good solution because
it transfers the responsibility from overworked administrators
to the people who actually possess the information."

In the meantime, other clients told the company that it was
not the best use of their time to generate feedback reports and
send them on to the subjects. So the company's developers
developed an automatic function that sends out the reports
directly to the subject, once again winning them kudos from the
customers.

Innovation
results in better customer satisfaction and convenience, says
Kohn-Bentley. But, she points out, online 360-degree feedback
providers can never stand still. "As soon as we finished
developing the most recent tool, we started consulting with
customers about our next great improvement. We're not talking
about it publicly yet, but we expect it will make their work
lives better still.".

Once that's complete, you can be certain it will spark a demand
for even more useful features.

Online service providers like Panoramic Feedback may add valued
new features to their products, but before they can enjoy the
kudos, those features will spark an urgent demand for even more
innovation.